Some Thoughts on Musa and Riven
by babybasschick96
Summary: Some Thoughts on Musa and Riven. Musa/Riven. AU. Adult themes. Other characters mentioned anecdotally. Hopefully more to come.
1. Chapter 1

I own nothing (I've forgotten to mention that part in my last couple of posts, oops). This is a part of a series I'm working on with the Winx Club girls. Musa and Riven's relationship is definitely the most AU of all of them, however the entire series is slightly AU because I've only seen the first three seasons. My apologies. Language should remain tame, but sex will be discussed in detail. No actual sex scenes that I plan, though. Also anecdotal mentions of abusive. Hopefully more to come! Thank you for your time!

Some thoughts on Musa and Riven

Musa and Riven's relationship had never gone the way that people thought it did. Both of the two were incredibly introverted (much like Helia and Flora, and Techna and Timmy), and just didn't open up to their friends about what was going on between the two of them. This very thing had caused many issues between the young couple as well. They were reluctant to open up and talk about their feelings, and having hotheaded tempers on top of it only made things worse, but eventually they'd fallen into trusting each other and had found out how to communicate without constantly offending the other.

They had both grown up in broken homes with single parents who did not handle it well. Musa's father banned music from the house and vented his anger and pain at Musa. While he might not have been physically abusive towards her, he was physically intimidating. He would yell and break things and punch walls. There was no doubt that he was mentally and emotionally abusive, but he'd never quite meant to be either. He'd just never approved of Musa love of music and didn't realize how much the things he said hurt her.

Riven had lost his mother at a young age as well, but unlike Musa's mother, Riven's had chosen to walk away. She'd left when he was just old enough to understand what was happening and feel her loss, but not old enough to understand why.

Riven's father had tried his best. He and Riven were actually quite close (news that had come as quite a shock to the rest of gang, excepting Musa, sometime in their senior year). Riven had actually had a fairly normal childhood with the exception that his father frequently spoke ill of his mother (and women in general) and blamed her for leaving.

It had only gotten worse when a drunken one night stand of his showed up at his door and demanded that he help take care of Riven's younger half sister. Once again, his father hadn't minded taking care of the child. He'd taken her in and offered her the best life he could, but he'd continued to blame her mother much like he had Riven's.

Just like Musa's father, he had failed to see how horribly this behavior had hurt his son.

Because of Riven's past, he had never been the flirt that everybody thought he was. He had never felt safe enough talking to girls. He'd come to hate all things feminine and found girls that couldn't focus on anything other than checking their make-up every five seconds annoying and ridiculous.

That was one of the first things he'd noticed about Musa. Other than the fact that she was cute with that edgy kind of way she had, that is. He'd liked the fact that she could hold a conversation about almost anything the group was talking about and didn't get distracted by something shiny flying by.

Something else that Riven noticed about Musa pretty early on (although he was much too scared or stubborn to ask about it) was that she had some kind of a bad situation that she was hiding. He wasn't sure what it was, he'd honestly assumed an abusive boyfriend from the scene she seemed to hang out in at first, but he'd known something was there. After they'd spent a little more time together, he'd started to recognize some of the same warning signs in her behavior that he'd seen in himself, and he'd known that it hadn't been just a boy that had broken her heart.

She had refused to talk about her family life, much like he'd refused to talk about his own. Everybody knew who her parents were; it was pretty obvious to anybody who'd grown up in the magical dimensions with ears, but she would dodge any question about her family life. She would pretend she hadn't heard it, or quickly divert the conversation to something else entirely.

Riven had questioned his own change in assumption many times, that was a lot of the reason he'd refused to ask her about it in the first place, but Flora and Brandon had talked about their parents and they had died when they were both young, too. Stella had opened up about her parents' divorce and their fights. Bloom wouldn't shut up about her parents, either of them, and two of them had "died" when she was a baby and the other two had been lying to her for 17 years.

So needless to say, Riven had a pretty good idea there was something going on with Musa's parents that she wasn't talking about, and Musa had figured out the same about him. Riven hadn't figured out the specifics before Musa had started talking to him about it, but he'd known there was more there than she was letting on.

Riven fell in on himself after coming out from underneath Darcy's spells (and she had him under a spell the entire time. Riven had never had any real interest in her. Darcy had just sensed the angst in him and used it to her advantage.) and pushed everyone away even more than he already did. Whenever the Specialists and the Winx got together, be it through school functions or missions or personal plans, he tended to break away and just wander off on his own to find silence and get lost in his own thoughts.

Musa tended to do the same when she wasn't performing. Neither one of them was sure who would run into who. If Riven would wander off and run into Musa, or if it was the other way around, but somehow they always found each other. They never talked about it or planned it ahead of time (at first) it just seemed to happen, and surprisingly, neither one of them seemed to mind the company.

At first, neither of them said anything. They found the other's presence oddly comforting, and it was nice to know that they weren't alone in their aloneness. Slowly, they started talking to each other, though. It started with simple hellos and small talk about whatever get together they were avoiding (or venting about whatever hair-brained scheme their friends were attempting), and before long, their evenings of silence were no longer silent.

They still didn't talk about their pasts or their respective trust issues, but their conversations did get deeper, and they quickly found out just how well they worked together.

It was during one of these stolen conversations, one of the earlier ones, that Musa had gotten off on some tangent story about sneaking out to go see this band she really liked back home. It wasn't really all that important, and the conversation had actually been about Riven losing his sister at a fair one day (he'd opened up about having a sister to her a long time ago, even if he hadn't given her all of the details), so Musa hadn't thought he'd been paying all that much attention.

She was absolutely completely beside herself when Riven showed up on her dorm balcony three nights later with tickets to go see them in Magix. That had been their first date. Not just a paired-off-from-the-rest-of-the-group hang out session, but their first real _date_.

That was one of the few things everybody did get right about their relationship, Musa and Riven snuck around and did stuff together all the time with out anybody else knowing (but more on that later).

Anyway, as well as they'd gotten to know each other over time, neither of them had talked about their pasts until that day that Musa's father showed up at Red Fountain for her concert.

By then, the two of them were going out on a date almost every week, and their "talks" had turned a lot more physical than verbal (another thing that will be discussed at a later date). They were both very physical beings, and the two of them had avoided physical intimacy with others for so long that as soon as the trust had started to grow between the two of them, they had both thrown all of their inhibitions to the wind before they could stop themselves.

Riven had been in class when the confrontation with Musa's father had actually happened, but he'd gone looking for her after. They were back in the arena and Layla was practicing her dance while Musa watched half-heartedly. He'd seen her face as the door closed behind him, the way his beautiful, kick-ass fairy had cracked, and he'd known. He'd overheard a couple other guys talking about her dad being in town, and he'd known his suspicions were correct, and all he'd wanted to do was pick her up and take her back to his room and tuck her into his bed and let her cry for as long as she wanted.

But he didn't. He knew her pride would never allow her to do that. She'd have to go to him whenever she was ready. So instead, he's just walked over and sat down beside her, close enough that she would notice his presence even in her trance-like state, but still a good two or three inches from actually touching, and tried to focus on disinterestedly watching Layla run through her routine. It was only two or three minutes later when he'd felt a warmth against his side and a light pressure on his arm.

Riven resisted the urge to give a small smile when he snuck a peek down and saw that Musa had closed the distance between the two of them and rested her chin against his arm, not quite tall enough to reach his shoulder. He shifted his weight back against her instead, and tried to stay as still and relaxed as he could be.

Musa on the other hand, wasn't exactly sure when she had noticed his presence.

The sound of the door opening hadn't jarred her from her thoughts, the slight hesitation in Layla's step hadn't confused her, her heart hadn't skipped a beat when she saw the red hair out of the corner of her eye; Riven had just kind of morphed to her side in that silent way that he had, and all of a sudden she felt safe. Like she had something to keep her from being pulled under or swept out to sea if she got overwhelmed.

At no point in time did she ever realize how literal that metaphor was, because she never realized she'd scooted over to his side. Not while it was happening, not when Layla came over when she was done after four more repetitions, not after Layla had left and the two stood up to go get something to eat like they had planned, not twenty years down the road after they'd been married and had kids of their own.

Musa would never come to realize just how much she gravitated towards Riven when given the chance.

The dinner that they'd gone to had been a quiet one. They'd left Red Fountain and ended up going into Magix on Riven's hover bike. A typically chatty Musa (at least on date's like this) was silent, and the girl who typically scarfed down two plates of food (another thing Riven loved about her) had all of three bites of her salad and pushed the rest around her plate half-heartedly.

They'd left after Riven was done eating and Riven had intended on just dropping her off at Alfea and giving her the space that she wanted, but something made him grab her hand and start pulling her through the streets of Magix. Musa had been surprised, but she didn't object, jumping the fence to the park with as much ease as he had. They'd wandered around the park in silence before they'd come to face each other sideways on one of the benches by the fountains.

That was where Riven told her.

He had no more idea why he'd told her then than why he'd brought her there in the first place, she obviously had enough on her mind without adding his sob stories on top of it, but he had wanted her to feel like she could trust him, and how could she trust him if he didn't trust her?

Granted he told her the short version. It would take years for him to divulge the entire story because even he himself hadn't realized the extent of the damage yet. But it was more than he'd ever told anyone else.

To say that Musa was surprised was an understatement, and for the first time since she'd seen her father, she'd finally been able to focus on something else other than the decision placed before her. Even with as close as she and Riven had become in the months leading up to it, she'd never expected him to open up to her so soon. She'd already resigned herself to silence on the issue for at least another couple of years.

Once she'd gotten over her shock, she listened intently, determined to keep him from having to repeat himself, and her heart broke all over again at how much Riven had been holding back.

It had been surprisingly easy for him to open up. He hadn't even realized what he was saying until it was already out of his mouth, but it seemed to be distracting Musa from whatever was on her mind and that was all he cared about. It was quiet for a while after he'd finished, the only noise between the two of them was that of the fountain and birds and insects around them until Musa finally spoke up.

Riven hadn't been expecting her apology, but he wasn't surprised by it either. She didn't follow it up with a great revelation of her own (she wasn't ready for that quite yet), but she did confess that there were issues with her dad and that he'd given her the ultimatum. Riven wasn't happy to hear that, but he'd also known better than anyone it wasn't his place to interfere.

Not yet at least.

He'd still offered to talk to her dad, but Musa had refused, as he knew she would. This was something she needed to figure out on her own. Giving her father the ammunition of an unruly and rude boyfriend to hold against her wouldn't help anything.

The couple had sat there in the park for a little bit longer, holding hands and bumping knees with each other as they asked tentative questions about what they'd been told, before they'd made the decision to leave.

Musa walked Riven back to his hover bike by the restaurant, but when he'd mentioned something about taking her back to Alfea, she'd refused. Riven knew he wasn't going to win so he'd relented and surprised her when he leaned down and pressed a loving kiss to her lips.

Up until then, their physical affections towards one another had all been rough and based purely on a physical need for contact. They hadn't really brought any emotion into their physical relationship other than the unexplainable trust they felt for each other. In comparison, this one was soft and reassuring and made both of the two of them question their decisions to leave.

Eventually they'd pulled away from each other, and Riven had driven off towards Red Fountain, but Musa wasn't surprised when he'd circled back and followed her out to her mother's grave.

Had anybody else tried that, she would have been infuriated. She would have transformed and blasted them into the next realm several times over. But she appreciated that Riven was worried about her, even if it was an invasion of her privacy. He couldn't have cared less where she went; he just wanted to make sure she was okay.

Riven was glad that he had followed her too, especially when he'd gotten back to Red Fountain early the next morning and Codatorta was waiting for him, wanting to know how she was and if she'd gotten back to Alfea okay.

Riven and Codatorta had come to an understanding about Riven's little nighttime outings a long time ago. Riven was allowed to go wherever and do whatever he wanted: but he could not let it affect his training; nobody else was allowed to know that he got away with it; he had to do it on his own dime; it could not affect Musa's studies; and if Riven ever got in over his head he was to call Codatorta to come help him.

They'd had that conversation shortly after the witch's failed attempt to take over the three schools. Codatorta had seen how badly everything with Darcy had affected Riven and had noticed not too long after that Riven's outings were helping him heal, especially after Musa started to join him. The deal was off record of course, and Codatorta couldn't help him if somebody else caught him, but he knew that Riven could take care of himself, and despite his gruff appearance, Codatorta really did care about his students.

Everybody knew the decision that Musa had made later on that day and the fallout from it, but nobody knew that Riven had made a decision that day, too.

His relationship with Musa's father could have gone one of two ways: they could have been worst enemies, constantly putting Musa in-between them; or they could have been civil, and Riven could help bridge the gap between Musa and her father. He'd chosen the latter, and reached out to her father at the concert later that evening.

One day he'd come to regard that as the third most important decision of his life (after choosing to get to know Musa better in the first place and deciding to have children with her later on, that is).

Musa and Riven hadn't gotten a chance to talk much or celebrate that night. Musa was busy being congratulated by the rest of her friends and reconciling with her dad. The next time they'd met up had been another one of their secret dates, and Musa had surprised Riven by jumping into his arms when he'd come to pick her up, giggling and kissing every inch of his skin she could find.

Another first for them.

Riven found himself chuckling as he spun her around and the two of them had a small celebration of their own.

It had still taken Musa a while to open up after that. While Riven had let most of the big, important stuff out in one long-winded confession, Musa's revelation had come out a little bit at a time. Small stories here and there that slowly confirmed Riven's guesses and unveiled more than he could have ever imagined in his worst nightmares.

Some times Riven would know it was coming. He could tell by the way she was talking or acting that something was on her mind and she needed to finally let it out. But other times, it would take him completely off guard.

They would be in the middle of a conversation and Musa would get really quiet all of a sudden and the next thing he knew she was telling him about the time her father had found out she'd snuck out to see a concert and literally put bars on her bedroom windows and locked her bedroom door from the outside every night so she couldn't leave. Or they would be laughing and joking with their friends (or watching their friends laugh and joke was a better description most of the time) and Musa would lean over and confide a quiet anecdote about something her father had said to her at one time or another.

It was hard for Riven to listen to sometimes, some of the stories were pretty intense, but he knew that she needed to talk about it and the more the two of them talked the farther in love with her he seemed to fall. And much to his surprise, he was perfectly okay with that.


	2. Chapter 2

**So…**

 **It's been awhile...**

 **The first thing I want to say (other than that) is that I'm sorry. When I first started writing this (and posted it), I had this entire universe worth of information and stories and little anecdotes that I was so excited to share with you, and about two weeks later, I went through some very traumatic medical things and just lost all of the steam I had to work on this fic. I had some other works saved up that I was able to post to get me through the initial month or two, and have recovered enough that I've been able to write and post some one-shots and have been able to start a couple longer, multi-chaptered fics here more recently, but I just haven't been able to make any headway with this. I've tried several different times, but it just—I can't.**

 **That's no excuse for leaving you guys waiting without any kind of an explanation, but it is what it is.**

 **So, moving forward, I am by no means done with this fic, but I am officially putting it on an indefinite hiatus until further notice. I am (still) trying to figure out how to go forward with this in a way that I will be content with (and will be enjoyable for you guys), but I don't know how long it's going to be until I'm able to do that.**

 **The rest of this post consists of a portion of a chapter I had been working on when everything happened back in September. Originally, it was supposed to be part of a much longer (probably multi-chaptered) section dealing with the development of Musa and Riven's relationship through Alfea and how they continued to grow throughout their transition out into the real (read: adult) world. As it stands however, I was unable to finish it and sadly it was left on a little bit of a cliffhanger (I'm sorry; spoiler alert: Musa's okay in the end, I promise). The beginning of this was supposed to be longer, too, going into more detail about the relationships between the two and Codatorta, Brandon, Flora, and Helia, but—well, you've heard the story already. Hopefully, one day I'll be able to finish and post this in it's entirety, but I didn't want to publish this note without giving you guys something else to read, and this was I had.**

 **Thank you so much for all of your patience so far, and thank you for your understanding moving forward (and the views and follows and favorites and alerts and comments and everything else—I really,** _ **really**_ **appreciate them). I will update this as soon as I can, but I can't promise when that will be. I would rather take my time and give you good work than force out something that's horrible and drag you through the mud with me. As always I own nothing, and would love to hear whatever feedback you can give me (even if it's just to tell me I suck (it happens pretty often, so I'm used to it)).**

 **Thank you for your time!**

Most of Riven and Musa relationship took place in secret. It's not like they were trying to hide it from everybody. It just kind of happened, and for the most part the two of them were okay with it. Relationships were hard enough without everybody else telling them what to do, and besides everybody just kind of knew that they were together (and when they didn't and decided to hit on Musa, Riven had no issues explaining it to them in private). There were only five people who were privy to the more intricate parts of their relationship, and even they only knew part of it.

The first, of course, was Codatorta.

The second was Brandon.

The third was Flora.

The fourth was Helia.

And the fifth was Techna. To her credit, she knew more than the rest, and she'd been much better at keeping the secret than everybody else. (Codatorta had confessed some to Saladine and Feragonda in order to help protect the young couple. Brandon didn't always make sure nobody else was listening in when he was giving Riven a hard time about it. And Flora and Helia liked to give each other a heads up when something was going on so they could prepare.)

Techna and Musa weren't close in the sense that they hung out all of the time or had long, dramatic heart-to-hearts like Bloom and Stella did, but over the years they'd come to know each other quite well. They had learned each others habits and body language as a means to help maintain homeostasis in the room, and could read even the slightest of changes in the other's moods, even if they couldn't figure out why. They were roommates after all.

So, even before Musa had started sneaking out, Techna knew something about her was changing, and it only took observing her and Riven's coming and goings when they were all supposed to be hanging out and the resulting changes in their moods to figure out that he was the cause. Or at least part of it.

Techna wasn't sure how she felt about their relationship at first, especially after the first time Musa had woken her up sneaking back into their room three hours after curfew the first time wearing one of Riven's hoodies.

In Riven and Musa's defense, that really had been innocent and they weren't even really dating yet. Everybody had met up in Magix for dinner and to just do teenager stuff and Riven and Musa had both conveniently slipped away. They'd fallen into one of their first real, in depth conversations with each other out by the lake and it had been colder than either one of them had expected. Musa had tried to play off her discomfort but Riven had rolled his eyes, muttered something about her being almost as stubborn as his sister and wrapped the sweatshirt around her shoulders before she could stop him (and yes, that was the first time he mentioned having a sister to her). Of course, it was colder than expected because the two had been talking much longer than expected, and by the time either one of them had realized it was already well past curfew.

Techna knew that it was far from the first time Musa had snuck out, they'd snuck out together before for all kinds of different things, but she was worried about her friend. She didn't want her getting in over her head either with Riven or trying to get back or forth to him, and while she didn't confront Musa about it like she should have, she did make a point to start asking questions about the two's relationship, and always stayed up until she heard Musa coming in and feigned sleep so Musa wouldn't know.

Things went on like that for a couple of months, and Techna battled internally over saying something to Musa but kept putting it off. Musa knew that Techna knew she was sneaking out, and she knew that Techna knew things between her and Riven were starting to get more serious, but she didn't think Techna knew the two were related. It was only when Musa came back to the dorm bloody and crying that everything came to a head.

Techna knew something was wrong right away. Musa fell against the door still in her Winx form before she changed back and slipped to the floor. Techna jumped out of bed, throwing her covers to the side in a flurry as she bounded over to the balcony and threw the door open. Musa was lying there, bloody and barely conscious. Techna had wanted to go get help right away, but Musa had begged her not to (for after all, it was well past curfew and she would probably be expelled for being out by herself) and Techna had relented against her better judgment. Instead, she half helped/half drug Musa into their room and used what few healing spells they'd been taught to help Musa as much as she could before putting a silencing charm on their room and calling Riven and telling him in no uncertain terms to get over to Alfea and help his girlfriend before Techna came over to Red Fountain and made whatever Musa had been through look like a walk in the park.

It was less than ten minutes later (Techna had reluctantly admitted that was pretty impressive a couple of days later) that Riven and Helia were slipping into their room from the balcony in full their full Specialist's uniforms and Techna had Riven pinned to the wall, demanding answers. That had lasted for all of about thirty seconds before Riven had taken stock of the entire room and noticed Musa laying on her bed, now completely unconscious. Before Techna knew what was happening Riven had pushed past her and was at Musa's side, rambling things off to Helia as he started taking inventory of her wounds and what he would need to fix them.

Techna watched on in stunned silence as the two of them worked, her anger quickly turning to worry and fear as the adrenaline started to fade from her system and she realized just how bad off her best friend really was.

Riven worked with the same single-mindedness that he did whenever he was faced with a problem when he was in uniform or on a mission. Assess the situation, determine a solution to any conflicts involved, and proceed quickly and efficiently. It was as natural to him as breathing, and the fact that it was his beautiful Musa he was working on did nothing to change that approach other than to maybe spur him on with more determination than ever. All of the Specialists at Red Fountain received extensive emergency medicinal training, and Riven was technically considered the medic of their team [a/n: i can't remember if that's canon or not, I don't think it is, but i have seen it in several other fics, and it would make sense that Red Fountain would set up their teams with a certain formula of tactical specialists/pilots/technical specialists/hand-to-hand combat specialists with somebody having medical training in case something goes wrong. I imagine that Riven would have strived to be very well rounded as i hope to discuss more in-depth in later chapters, and his teachers would have encouraged him to pursue the medical training as much as they could because having someone who knows how to effectively handle and treat wounds on a "battle front" who is as skilled in combat as he is and can easily fall into multiple roles on a mission can be invaluable and save a lot of lives. Any who, my apologies, back to the story.]

Helia listened to his ramblings intently because they weren't just ramblings and made a quiet assessment of his own as he kept perfect track of all of the supplies Riven was listing off. For his part, he hadn't really known about Musa and Riven yet, other than something was obviously going on between the two of them that they weren't telling any about, and Riven seemed to come back much happier after he'd snuck out some nights than others. As far as that night had gone, he'd just been enjoying sleeping peacefully in his bed after a long evening of studying when he'd been woken up by Riven climbing in through the window. Riven was always silent as he did so, mostly because it was natural to him and these whole sneaking in and out things were good practice for him, but also a little bit because he liked his new room mate and didn't want to disturb him. All-in-all, Riven knew that he was kind of hard to put up with sometimes with his attitude and Helia had it hard enough being Saladine's nephew and trying to make up for the missed year, and really he wasn't a bad room. No matter how quiet Riven was though, Helia always woke up. It was what made a Specialist a good Specialist. That ability to sense something was wrong no matter how well the threat covered their tracks. It was the exact same thing that had brought him back to Red Fountain. Helia had panicked the first night it had happened, but after pinning a confused and fighting Riven to the floor (that was the other thing that had brought him back to Red Fountain, as much as he hated true violence he'd missed having people around who could keep up with him), he'd calmed down and most of the time after that he barely took a second to confirm solely by listening that it was Riven (or later Musa) before falling back to sleep.

The night Musa was hurt was no different than normal other than the fact that his dream was centered around a certain fairy of nature and some incredibly flattering silken lace, and he was a little ticked off about being woken up from it so suddenly. He had groaned as his vision of his (well not necessarily his, yet) beautiful Flora wriggling underneath him in ecstasy was replaced by the darkness of his own room as his eyes fluttered open at the sound of the window being pushed up and rolled over towards the wall as Riven's feet hit the floor inside their room and threw his pillow at his roommate's head with impeccable aim.

Riven had panicked for a fraction of a second as the projectile got closer and closer before he realized what it was and relaxed as he caught the pillow an inch away from his face. It hadn't taken more than a look over Helia's ruffled sheets and his tense posture to figure out why his roommate was particularly crabby this evening and he couldn't help but let out a quiet chuckle because really, he knew Helia's pain. Helia had grumbled some at his laughter and threw an uncharacteristic "shut up" over his shoulder before Riven had thrown the pillow back at him (hitting Helia square on the back of his head and shoulders) and told him to man up and tell her how he felt already.

Now given the circumstances, Helia hadn't taken that very well at all and shot back that Riven was one to talk and yanked the pillow back under his head and buried his face into it when Riven just laughed and proceeded to start stripping out of his clothes for the night. Normally, Riven would have taken offense to something like that and their little banter could have led to a rare, good fight for both of the two of them to blow off some steam, but after the wonderful night that Riven had just had with Musa, he really didn't have any steam to blow off anymore. They'd been making out by the lake for an hour or two before Musa had gotten tired and headed back to Alfea. He'd thought about following her to make sure she was okay, he'd done that before, but the circumstances were different then, and he didn't think she would be as appreciative of the protectiveness now, so he had just stayed by the lake a little bit longer, calming himself back down before taking the long way back to Red Fountain on his hover bike. As soon as he'd found out she'd been hurt he'd regretted not following his instincts.

He'd just gotten himself snuggled up half under the covers, sprawled across the bed on his stomach like he liked, when he got the call.

At first, he was going to just ignore it, but when he'd open his eyes to glare at the vibrating piece of technology, he'd caught Techna's name flashing across the screen and he was so bewildered that he'd reached out and answered it before he'd known what he was doing.

Any thoughts of sleep were gone when he'd heard the panic in Techna's voice and he was up and out of bed, throwing another pillow across the room at Helia as he headed towards their closet and started pulling his uniform on. Helia had been right behind him (he'd been listening the entire time and even though he knew even less about what was going on than Riven, he knew they needed to get over to Alfea now, and the pillow really hadn't been necessary), and three minutes later they were crawling out the window Riven had just been crawling in.

The two had made their way to Alfea as fast as they could, and it had only taken the two about thirty seconds to figure out how they were going to get over the wall and up to Techna and Musa's balcony as they had been instructed [read: threatened]. Thankfully, the two had already thought about doing this for other...safety reasons (yeah, they had totally thought about breaking into the girls dorm for safety reasons, it /definitely/ wasn't personal or anything. No. Of course not. They were professionals.), and they'd combined Helia's plan for getting over the wall with Riven's idea of moving along the roof and dropping down onto the balcony from above to fool the security measures put into place and slip in through the doors with out being discovered. It really was a credit to their training and natural skills that they'd been able to pull it off so quickly, most people couldn't breach the school's defenses, and the few that could typically had to try a couple different times before they were successful.

The ride through the cool air in the forest had done a lot to help clear Helia's head from the dream he had been having, and any lingering thoughts of it were gone as soon as they'd stepped through the door and seen that Techna hadn't been exaggerating. He was genuinely concerned for the girl and wasn't sure whether or not Riven would be able to handle this on his own, but he'd seen his roommates test scores and that one time that his uncle had pulled him out of their strategies class to go help that kid that had been attacked by the dragon in heat, and he'd figured if worst came to worst, help was only a yell away. So, he paid attention to what Riven said as he made his own catalogue of her injuries in hopes of making sure Riven didn't miss anything he could catch with his own knowledge.

For her part, Techna eventually turned her focus to her friend's breathing—the one confirmation that her friend was still alive from the distance—and didn't realize that she was crying until Helia had laid a hand on her shoulder and asked her if she was okay. Techna had just stared back at him for a moment before she shook her self out of her stupor and told him she was fine as she wiped her eyes. He'd looked like he was going to argue for a moment before he nodded his head and asked her if she could go get the things that he hadn't been able to find in the room or their bathroom. She'd nodded her head in return and just told him to come with her when he started to list off supplies. There was no way she was going to be able to remember it all right now. Instead, she'd told him to follow her and led him out into the common room of their dorm, noticing Riven still sitting on the side of Musa's bed, quickly, but uncharacteristically gently, wiping off the blood that had seeped from the gashes across Musa's torso with a wet washcloth she recognized as one of her own.

Techna numbly helped Helia grab the things that Riven would need (and come up with some plausible substitutes when they weren't able to find whatever they were looking for), and almost fell to her knees in relief when they'd walked back into


End file.
